The View Says Mocking VP Harris’ Incompetence Is Rooted in Racism and Misogyny, or Something

According to some members of “The View” daytime talk show on Friday, any critic who watched Vice President Kamala Harris laugh when asked a serious question about Ukrainian refugees amidst the Russian invasion are likely right-wing sexist bigots for expressing embarrassment and mocking the bizarre laughting fits.

Former Vice President Mike Pence is frequently brought up as a counterargument to those who believe the Harris laugh situation is cringe-worthy.

The incident itself happened at the tail end of a press conference on Thursday between the US vice president and Polish president Andrzej Duda. A reporter asked Harris if America would be capable of accepting more Ukrainian refugees, and then asked Duda if that was something he brought up already with her.

Since the reporter asked a question to both of them, the pair of world leaders ended up staring at each other for a moment unsure who would go first.

This is when Harris exploded with laughter on the podium.

The reactions to the viral Harris incident went around “The View” table. Longtime co-host Joy Behar reacted, saying: “I personally think if she was a guy, they would never say it, because they also made fun of Hillary’s laugh.”

Guest co-host Stephanie Grisham also offered a reaction. While thinking it’d still be “inappropriate” to Harris on laughter alone, she explained that people’s gripes came from the issue of it coming off like a lack of preparedness on the part of the vice president and her staff. “I think she has gone on multiple occasions a little bit underprepared with some of the questions that she’s been asked,” Grisham said.

Behar’s colleague Sunny Hostin said she believed that right-wingers “constantly question the qualifications of black women,” and that anyone who thinks poorly of Harris’s job performance has those feelings rooted in “racism” and “misogyny.”

Hostin reminded the audience of the general purpose for the vice president’s trip in visiting NATO allies amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Under that backdrop, she framed the gaffe with the Polish president as “much ado about nothing.”

Ana Navarro, a frequent co-host, said: “Look. Anybody who says that Kamala Harris is not a qualified person, that Kamala Harris is not a serious person, really needs to go back and check where that’s coming from.” Beyond that, Navarro took a similar approach to Hostin’s reaction in pointing to Harris’s immigrant upbringing and law school education as things working in the vice president’s favor. “They do this all the time,” she said about the Harris backlash.

Behar ended up admitting people like her were hard on former Republican Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin for being seemingly unprepared years ago when she was in the 2008 presidential election spotlight. She’s willing to entertain the notion that maybe this is “payback” for that era.

It’s unclear where former spokeswoman for Ukrainian President Zelenskyy would sit in “The View” worldview. It was on Thursday that ex-Zelenskyy spokesperson Iuliia Mendel reacted to the Harris gaffe by commenting, “It would be a tragedy if this woman won the presidency.” She deleted the tweet later that same day.

On the topic of the Russian invasion, Behar initially reacted with devastation, particularly the potential threat that the war would have on her Italy travel plans.

Other past issues covered by “The View” include believing Justice Clarence Thomas “doesn’t respect the black community,” Whoopi Goldberg’s furious reaction to Rep. Lauren Boebert heckling President Joe Biden during his State of the Union address, and a guest of the show calling the US Constitution “trash.”